Natural language processing and chatbots are now becoming commonplace in many fields; however, such systems are not perfect. The ramifications of giving an incorrect answer by a chatbot to a question relating to directions or re-directing a call in an automated computer system are annoying, but unlikely to cause serious distress.
There is a much larger challenge to implement a chatbot in a medical setting as incorrect advice could potentially have disastrous results. For this reason, chatbots that are deployed to give medical information are strictly controlled to give advice that is validated by a medical professional. Having said this, a user of a medical chatbot may express their symptoms in many different ways and the validation by a medical professional must be able to cover all inputs. Also, validation by a medical expert is a long process and repetition of the validation process should be minimised.
There is therefore a need for improve natural language processing, particularly in the field of chatbots for providing medical information.